3.30.2010

Inside a Doublewide

What do I always say up there at the very top of the page? "It's not what you decorate, but how you decorate it that counts." I think that's true of everything, but it's especially true of my house - because it's a mobile home. The comment I heard most often throughout its first remodel was, "But this won't look like a trailer anymore!" Mind you, I might be trailer trash myself, but my doublewide is not.

Here's another doublewide that defies stereotypes. It belongs to Theresa and Craig Smith, who furnished it with architectural salvadge and antiques from their shop, Cottage Gardens in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Their imaginative work was discovered by the editors of Country Living magazine and is currently featured online in videos and photos, that I've reposted here.

As the interviewer says about meeting Theresa, "She whipped out pictures of her house that were just to die for, and I'm looking through them and ooing and ahing and getting so excited, and she says, 'Well, there's a little hiccup - it's actually a mobile home.' You could have pushed me over with a feather. It was amazing, so amazing. I just couldn't believe they were interiors based on a mobile home. In 28 years of Country Living, we had never shot a mobile home, so we knew we had stumbled upon something really great."

See for yourself . . .
(help the videos load by clicking "pause" for a bit)

The Kitchen
The secret behind this amazing kitchen? Repurposing and imagination!

The Living Room
Paint and architectural salvage create an economically-friendly room.

The Bedroom
Create an elegant personal space complete with collections and special touches.

The Workspace
Inspiration is key in a studio. Bright wall paint and other ideas here!

Designed by Theresa and Craig Smith
Photographed by Keith Scott Morton
Published by Country Living

Theresa Smith has honed her distinctively elegant salvage style through years of antiques shows — and it all comes together in her Glendale, Kentucky, mobile home.

Thirteen years ago, Theresa Smith was a single mother of three, moving back from a job overseas, with one week to find a new home. She ordered a 28- by 72-foot mobile home with as few walls as possible, so it would feel light and open. Five years later, she married Craig Smith, and they built a new home together. Soon after, the Smiths decided to go into the antiques business, selling at shows around the country, so moving back to her mortgage-free mobile home made sense. Inside this four-bedroom, 2,016-square-foot home, Theresa proves that "it isn't the structure you live in, it's what you do with it that makes it a home."
[Now, where have I heard that before?]

A double-wide mobile home on two acres of land offers a home base for Theresa and Craig Smith, who travel nearly half the year for their antiques business and their Elizabethtown shop, Cottage Gardens.

An actual front porch, with mail still in the mailbox, from a house in Louisville now graces Theresa's sun room.

Craig Smith makes and sells candelabra such as this one out of old lamp parts. Find the Smiths' work at their store, Cottage Gardens, in Elizabethtown, Ky., and at the Marburger Antique Show in Texas the first weekend in October.

Theresa chose garden furniture for the kitchen because "the glass top and airy lines don't stop the eye." The chandelier is one of 14 in the house.

Antique antics find plenty of room for expression here. At last count, Theresa had 130 ironstone butter pats. "They have no purpose, I just like their looks," she says.

Theresa found a cache of old, heavy enamel letters and sold all but these three.

Red walls in Theresa's studio are the one exception to her home's ivory rule. An old restaurant prep table serves as a desk. Metal security grates are now bulletin boards.

A commercial sink provides a sleek counterpoint to all the peeling paint.

Space limited? Try layering upward. Theresa used architectural elements to punctuate walls and shelves. Removed from their original purpose, they form intriguing silhouettes in the kitchen. Theresa replaced standard-issue oak cabinets with vintage cupboards and even a Sellers cabinet (left). An old store counter (foreground) now serves as a work island.

Round iron vents such as this once hung beneath the eaves of Kentucky homes to let hot air escape.

In the master bedroom, "I like to pair worn metal or wood with something fabulous," says Theresa. The canopy is from an old store display. Theresa sandblasted it, left it out to rust, then sealed it and wove scrim in its curlicues. Displayed below: her grandmother's pearls, beads, hats, and bags.

Vignettes juxtapose textures, shapes, and styles. A dining room cupboard showcases Theresa's overflowing collection of white ironstone. "None of it is pristine or perfect," she says. "It's stained and chipped and cracked, and that's the way I like it." Old dolls' heads add a touch of humor.

In the master bedroom, a framed display of carved heads and a statuette, candleholders from a restaurant, and Italian chairs surround a salvaged mantel.